The Horrors of Manifest Destiny
1. The racial predominance influence.

"Namely the idea that the American Anglo-Saxon race
was "separate, innately superior" and "destined to bring good government,
commercial prosperity and Christianity to the American continents and the
world". This view also held that "inferior races were doomed to subordinate
status or extinction." This was used to justify "the enslavement of the blacks
and the expulsion and possible extermination of the Indians"
President Abraham Lincoln opposed anti-immigrant
nativism, and the imperialism of manifest destiny as both unjust and
unreasonable. He objected to the Mexican War and believed each of these
disordered forms of patriotism threatened the inseparable moral and fraternal
bonds of liberty and Union that he sought to perpetuate through a patriotic love
of country guided by wisdom and critical self-awareness. Lincoln's "Eulogy to
Henry Clay", June 6, 1852, provides the most cogent expression of his reflective
patriotism.